Daimler CEO and chairman of the board Dieter Zetsche is returning home from a trip to Silicon Valley where he met directly with several companies, but without naming them specifically. Though he didn’t disclose the companies he met with, Zetsche commented on the car industry effort of some Silicon Valley-based tech firms, namely Apple and Google.

While talking with German weekly Welt am Sonntag (via Auto News), Zetsche admitted being surprised by the companies efforts:

“Our impression was that these companies can do more and know more than we had previously assumed. At the same time they have more respect for our achievements than we thought,”

Daimler is not really an outsider to Silicon Valley. The company’s Mercedes-Benz brand established an important R&D center there back in 1995. Johann Jungwirth was the head of the R&D center until early last year, but he left for Apple, where he only lasted about a year before joining Volkswagen in November 2015.